1/ THREAD. MFA in Creative Writing at Chapman University. Application deadline: February 1. That's MONDAY! Let me say a few things about our program first, and then I'll provide a CODE for an application FEE WAIVER at the end of this thread. #MFA #gradschool #creativewriting

2/ While some of our MFA students focus on one genre, many write across genres. @tryphena_yeboah published her first poetry chapbook last year with @AkashicBooks, has published stories @NarrativeMag, and is writing a thesis in fiction with thesis director Richard Bausch.
3/ Likewise, @lizharmer published her first novel with @penguinrandom while she was an MFA student here, her second novel is forthcoming in 2022, and she drafted a memoir as her thesis, with me as the thesis director. Lots of our students take a workshop in a second genre.
4/ MFA faculty work across genres too. Jim Blaylock is a steampunk fiction writers (see Homunculus), and now he writes essays (see a couple in @poetswritersinc). @TheMil10 writes plays & poems & I write poems & essays. Together, our expertise covers a broad range of aesthetics.
5/ All incoming MFA students begin with Aspects of a Writer in their first fall semester. This course focuses on sustaining a writing life, publishing, and fostering literary culture. When I teach the course, each student forms a Writing Life Plan based on their own goals.
6/ All students conclude the MFA program with a thesis, which serves a book-length draft and a sort of proof of concept for their writing life over the longer term. A couple of years ago, Liz Harmer won the regional WAGS/ProQuest Award for best creative master's thesis.
7/ In between Aspects and Thesis, students take workshop and techniques courses and also choose from electives in literature, rhetoric, and digital humanities. Students also have the option to pursue a particular topic connected to their thesis as an independent study.
8/ Digital Humanities is offered every year, and we're piloting a course in Publishing Industries this semester. MFA students who complete the screenwriting course in Creative Writing are eligible for a spot in the Adaptation course in the film school (ranked top ten).
9/ The MFA program hosts two reading series: Tabula Poetica in the fall & Fowles (w/international focus) in the spring. We host Pub(lishing) Crawl in April, which extends the conversation begun in the Aspects course. A coffee shop down the street hosts a weekly poetry open mic.
10/ Since it's winter and my family in Illinois just texted pics of snow and single-digit temps, I'll mention that Chapman U is located in Southern CA between the ocean and the mountains, and it's a sunny, chilly 65° here in Orange today.
11/ Campus is close to the train to LA & San Diego. LA is 30 miles away. Here in the City of Orange, we're blocks from The Circle of shops & restaurants. Of course, we're starting this semester remotely & any student can remain online this semester even if we return to campus.
12/ Applicants are usually wondering about funding. I'll be honest. It's expensive to live in Southern CA, and the MFA program is unable to offer every admitted student funding. We DO have several competitive fellowships that cover tuition & include an $18,000 annual stipend.
13/ All MFA apps submitted by 2/1 are considered for fellowships. Faculty Richard Bausch & Presidential Fellow @carolynforche were instrumental in establishing these fantastic opportunities at Chapman U. With the fee waiver at the end of this thread, why not add us to your list?
14/ Our Grad Teaching Asst program is rigorous & competitive. All students who take Teaching Composition in Spring can apply for a GTA spot the following Fall. Not all MFA students was to teach & that's ok. @CU_Wilkinson has a career advisor to help pursue other paths.
15/ Some MFA students teach at Orange County School of the Arts & others teach at OC Recovery Education Institute. Several recent alums are now full-time faculty at community colleges. While we cultivate teaching options, our goal is not to make every writer into a professor.
16/ Our MFA alums hold jobs as medical writers, grant writers, web designers, fundraisers, and more because there are all sorts of ways to sustain writing and reading over a lifetime. The MFA program helps each writer get their bearings and set a trajectory.
17/ A little about Chapman U as the context for our MFA program. It's big enough for a range of resources & small enough that you can get answers, find opportunities, & connect across campus. The interdisciplinary vibe here is genuine. We have work to do & we're trying to do it.
18/ Our app deadline is 2/1 & applications are coming in at the same rate as last year, so we're set on the numbers. But this has been a rough year for a lot of people. Yesterday, the Grad Programs Coordinator & decided we want anyone interested in an MFA to have a shot with us.
19/ In hopes of creating fostering equity & an inclusive application pool, I'm sharing a fee waiver code for the MFA in Creative Writing program at Chapman U. 24 hours after you submit your app, you get an email reminding you to pay the fee. In it is a link to a waiver request.
20/ Thru Feb. 1 & if you need it, you can use this last-minute code in your request for an application fee waiver: MFALEAHY. First, please read this whole thread and look at our website. If you have questions, email the Grad Programs Coordinator or me. https://t.co/4hrv5E9dki

More from Education

** Schools have been getting ready for this: a thread **

In many ways, I don't blame folks who tweet things like this. The media coverage of the schools situation in Covid-19 rarely talks about the quiet, day-in-day-out work that schools have been doing these past 9 months. 1/


Instead, the coverage focused on the dramatic, last minute policy announcements by the government, or of dramatic stories of school closures, often accompanied by photos of socially distanced classrooms that those of us in schools this past term know are from a fantasy land. 2/


If that's all you see & hear, it's no wonder that you may not know what has actually been happening in schools to meet the challenges. So, if you'd like a glimpse behind the curtain, then read on. For this is something of what teachers & schools leaders have been up to. 3/

It started last March with trying to meet the challenges of lockdown, being thrown into the deep end, with only a few days' notice, to try to learn to teach remotely during the first lockdown. 4/

https://t.co/S39EWuap3b


I wrote a policy document for our staff the weekend before our training as we anticipated what was to come, a document I shared freely & widely as the education community across the land started to reach out to one another for ideas and support. 5/
https://t.co/m1QsxlPaV4
Working on a newsletter edition about deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is crucial if you want to reach expert level in any skill, but what is it, and how can it help you learn more precisely?

A thread based on @augustbradley's conversation with the late Anders Ericsson.

You can find my complete notes from the conversation in my public Roam graph:
https://t.co/Z5bXHsg3oc

The entire conversation is on

The 10,000-hour 'rule' was based on Ericsson's research, but simple practice is not enough for mastery.

We need teachers and coaches to give us feedback on how we're doing to adjust our actions effectively. Technology can help us by providing short feedback loops.

There's purposeful and deliberate practice.

In purposeful practice, you gain breakthroughs by trying out different techniques you find on your own.

In deliberate practice, an expert tells you what to improve on and how to do it, and then you do that (while getting feedback).

It's possible to come to powerful techniques through purposeful practice, but it's always a gamble.

Deliberate practice is possible with a map of the domain and a recommended way to move through it. This makes success more likely.
Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.

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